Page 82 of Corruption

Or maybe it’s even worse than that. Maybe even less sympathetic. Maybe it’s just that Vaughn only cares for himself and always has, and the people he cares about are just the people most useful to him.

Kiya’s not like that though. That I don’t doubt.

“It’s human nature to fuck someone over for your own benefit,” Alik says. “We did. It’s the reason we’re in this fucking shit show.”

“This isn’t the same as what Vaughn did. Your father was going to give the order to kill me and you. He was going to fuck us both over first just because you stood up for yourself and defied him for the first time in your life because of something everyone knew was wrong.”

“Even more reason for us to know Kiya is going to go running to her father. We were going to fuck her over first.”

“We wouldn’t have had to if you’d just listened to me in the first place and we’d gone to—”

“Because Adrian would have been so understanding.”

“Not Adrian. Addy!”

“Sure. Addy. The ruthless Italian mafia queen who built a business from the ground up in only a few years, united all her father’s enemies, and killed him. That Addy.”

“No. The Addy who betrayed her father for her own children. And you don’t give Adrian enough credit. He betrayed Pray for her. If anyone sympathizes with betraying someone for someone they love, it’s him.”

Alik is silent for a while before saying, “Perhaps. But you know what he’s not going to like? He’s not going to like Addy being blamed for something we knew she didn’t do to give our family leverage.”

“We didn’t do that part. That was Vaughn. Vaughn is the one who deviated from the plan. It was his selfishness that got us into this mess.”

“Doesn’t matter. We were complicit in it and you know it.”

“Yes…” I agree reluctantly, then sigh. Alik hands me the glass of wine. “Fuck, how did this happen?”

“You know exactly how this happened. We fucked her.”

“It’s more than that. We didn’t just fuck her. We wooed her. We enamored her. We freed her… and she did the same thing to us in return without even trying. That’s how this happened. She was resigned to her fate until we did that. And then she had to poke her nose in things she shouldn’t have.”

“For the record,” Alik says as he takes the wine back from me, “I warned you this would happen. You knew this would happen and jumped headfirst into it.”

“I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

Alik scoffs. “And you tell me I never have a plan.”

“There’s one more way out of this.”

“Nadia, hasn’t your meddling done enough?”

“Can’t get any more fucked than we are if we do nothing.”

He sighs. “What’s your plan now?”

“We prove she’s not really his daughter. Prove he gave her to Vaughn in bad faith in the first place.”

“Putting us exactly where we were before all this. At the brink of war with the Fantonis because Addy rightfully won’t take responsibility for something she didn’t do.”

“No. Not if we also expose Vaughn’s coverup. We keep their deception secret. They keep ours. Everyone calls it even and moves on.”

“The problem with that is their deception is a direct result of ours.”

“Doesn’t matter. Addy has gone through a lot of trouble of proving she’s the more upstanding ruler than her father. So if people were to know she let Adrian give us a fake daughter, it would risk the stability she’s just established after taking over her father’s business. She’ll go to war. But she doesn’t want one. That much I know.”

Alik doesn’t answer immediately, so I wait. I’m not going to make any move that he doesn’t agree with or that he’d have an issue with. Just like he wouldn’t with me. There are some things that are better to ask forgiveness than permission. But things like this. Things we’re unequivocally in together, we both agree or we do nothing. We got into this mess together, we get out of it together… or not.

Finally, Alik says, “You better hope we can get Kitten to cooperate because she’s the only one who will be able to help us prove she’s not Adrian’s daughter. Adrian and Addy have buried or covered up anything else that might lead us to the truth.”

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